lindsaywesker

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“Asking for a friend” by Cedric Smith

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Good morning!  I hope you slept well and feel rested?  Currently sitting at my desk, in my study, attired only in my blue towelling robe, enjoying my first cuppa of the day.

Bit of sun yesterday but bloody cold!  I worked from home, so I had the heating on all day.  Probably cost me a fortune but - sod it! – I had work that needed doing and I needed to be comfortable.  Got another day at home today, so I shall be busy as ever!

What will I be buying on Black Friday (November 29th)?  Nothing.  I’ll be buying some take away Chinese for my family and that will be it.  I don’t need anything.  Not nothing!  I spoke to Lady Wesker yesterday and she was trying to buy me a late birthday present.  I said to her, “Save your money!  I don’t need anything!”  All I want her to do is stay warm and fed, and I’ll be trying to do the same.  This house is full of too much.  I literally need nothing!  Black Friday isn’t offering me any kind of bargain I need!  You want to give me something? Reduce my energy bill or my council tax!

People that want to control you get very upset when they discover they can’t.  With all they control (or think they control), are these people strong?  No.  Control freaks are weak, insecure and desperately short on creativity (unless they’re telling a lie!)  They know they have little to give so, in an ideal world, they want YOU to come up with the ideas and do all the work and, naturally, they will take all the credit!  Yeah, thanks, mate!  In fact, when you show the control freak that you don’t need them, they can be very bitchy and spiteful. 

What a climactic end to the year!  For me, the last week of December is going to be absolutely brilliant!  Friday, December 27: ‘Let The Music Play’ at Cinnabar in Stevenage, with all the usual crew and the beautiful people.  Saturday, December 28: ‘Xmas Reunited’ at Cottons, Hoxton Square; literally, wall-to-wall celebrities!  Tuesday, December 31: New Year’s Eve Party at The White Lion, Streatham; hot, sweaty, grown and sexy! 

Have a throbbing and thrusting Thursday (with hopefully a few thrills through your thoroughfare?)  I love you all.

[lindsaywesker]

24 Invaluable Skills To Learn For Free Online This Year

Here’s an easy resolution: This stuff is all free as long as you have access to a computer, and the skills you learn will be invaluable in your career, and/or life in general. 

1. Become awesome at Excel.

Chandoo is one of many gracious Excel experts who wants to share their knowledge with the world. Excel excellence is one of those skills that will improve your chances of getting a good job instantly, and it will continue to prove invaluable over the course of your career. What are you waiting for?

2. Learn how to code.

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Perhaps no other skill you can learn for free online has as much potential to lead to a lucrative career. Want to build a site for your startup? Want to build the next big app? Want to get hired at a place like BuzzFeed? You should learn to code. There are a lot of places that offer free or cheap online coding tutorials, but I recommend Code Academy for their breadth and innovative program. If you want to try a more traditional route, Harvard offers its excellent Introduction to Computer Science course online for free.

3. Make a dynamic website.

You could use a pre-existing template or blogging service, or you could learn Ruby on Rails and probably change your life forever. Here’s an extremely helpful long list of free Ruby learning tools that includes everything from Rails for Zombies to Learn Ruby The Hard Way. Go! Ruby! Some basic programming experience, like one of the courses above, might be helpful (but not necessarily required if you’re patient with yourself).

4. Learn to make a mobile game.

If you’re not interested in coding anything other than fun game apps, you could trythis course from the University of Reading. It promises to teach you how to build a game in Java, even if you don’t have programming experience! If you want to make a truly great game, you might want to read/listen up on Game Theory first.

5. Start reading faster.

Spreeder is a free online program that will improve your reading skill and comprehension no matter how old you are. With enough practice, you could learn to double, triple, or even quadruple the speed at which you read passages currently, which is basically like adding years to your life.

6. Learn a language!

With Duolingo, you can learn Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, or English (from any of the above or more). There’s a mobile app and a website, and the extensive courses are completely free.

Full disclosure: BuzzFeed and other websites are in a partnership with DuoLingo, but they did not pay or ask for this placement.

7. Pickle your own vegetables.

Tired of your farmer’s market haul going bad before you use it all? Or do you just love tangy pickled veggies? You too can pickle like a pro thanks to SkillShare and Travis Grillo.

8. Improve your public speaking skills.

You can take the University of Washington’s Intro to Public Speaking for free online. Once you learn a few tricks of the trade, you’ll be able to go into situations like being asked to present at a company meeting or giving a presentation in class without nearly as much fear and loathing.

9. Get a basic handle of statistics.

UC Berkeley put a stats intro class on iTunes. Once you know how to understand the numbers yourself, you’ll never read a biased “news” article the same way again — 100% of authors of this post agree!

10. Understand basic psychology.

Knowing the basics of psych will bring context to your understanding of yourself, the dynamics of your family and friendships, what’s really going on with your coworkers, and the woes and wonders of society in general. Yale University has its Intro to Psychology lectures online for free.

11. Make your own music.

Step one: Learn how to play guitar: Justin Guitar is a fine and free place to start learning chords and the basic skills you’ll need to be able to play guitar — from there, it’s up to you, but once you know the basics, just looking up tabs for your favorite songs and learning them on your own is how many young guitar players get their start (plus it’s an excellent party trick).

Step two: A delightful free voice lesson from Berklee College Of Music.

Step three: Have you always thought you had an inner TSwift? Berklee College of Music offers an Introduction to Songwriting course completely for free online. The course is six weeks long, and by the end of the lesson you’ll have at least one completed song.

Step four: Lifehacker’s basics of music production will help you put it all together once you have the skills down! You’ll be recording your own music, ready to share with your valentine or the entire world, in no time!

12. Learn to negotiate.

Let Stanford’s Stan Christensen explain how to negotiate in business and your personal life, managing relationships for your personal gain and not letting yourself be steamrolled. There are a lot of football metaphors and it’s great.

13. Stop hating math.

If you struggled with math throughout school and now have trouble applying it in real-world situations when it crops up, try Saylor.org’s Real World Math course. It will reteach you basic math skills as they apply IRL. Very helpful!

14. Start drawing!

All kids draw — so why do we become so afraid of it as adults? Everyone should feel comfortable with a sketchbook and pencil, and sketching is a wonderful way to express your creativity. DrawSpace is a great place to start. (I also highly recommend the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain if you can drop a few dollars for a used copy.)

15. Make your own animated GIF.

BuzzFeed’s own Katie Notopoulos has a great, simple guide to making an animated GIF without Photoshop. This is all you need to be the king or queen of Tumblr or your favorite email chains.

16. Appreciate jazz.

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Have you never really “gotten” jazz? If you want to be able to participate in conversations at fancy parties and/or just add some context to your appreciation of all music, try this free online course from UT Austin.

17. Write well.

Macalester College’s lecture series is excellent. If you’re more interested in journalism, try Wikiversity’s course selection.

18. Get better at using Photoshop.

Another invaluable skill that will get you places in your career, learning Photoshop can be as fun as watching the hilarious videos on You Suck At Photoshop or as serious as this extensive Udemy training course (focused on photo retouching).

19. Take decent pictures.

Lifehacker’s basics of photography might be a good place to start. Learn how your camera works, the basic of composition, and editing images in post-production. If you finish that and you’re not sure what to do next, here’s a short course on displaying and sharing your digital photographs.

20. Learn to knit.

Instructables has a great course by a woman who is herself an online-taught knitter. You’ll be making baby hats and cute scarves before this winter’s over!

21. Get started with investing in stocks.

If you are lucky enough to have a regular income, you should start learning about savings and investment now. Investopedia has a ton of online resources, including this free stocks basics course. Invest away!

22. Clean your house in a short amount of time.

Unf$#k Your Habitat has a great emergency cleaning guide for when your mother-in-law springs a surprise visit on you. While you’re over there, the entire blog is good for getting organized and clean in the long term, not just in “emergencies.” You’ll be happier for it.

23. Start practicing yoga.

Most cities have free community classes (try just searching Google or inquiring at your local yoga studio), or if you’re more comfortable trying yoga at home, YogaGlohas a great 15-day trial and Yome is a compendium of 100% free yoga videos. If you’re already familiar with basic yoga positions but you need an easy way to practice at home, I recommend YogaTailor’s free trial as well.

24. Tie your shoelaces more efficiently.

It’s simple and just imagine the minutes of your life you’ll save!

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Good morning!  I hope you slept well and feel rested?  Currently sitting at my desk, in my study, attired only in my blue towelling robe, enjoying my first cuppa of the day.  Happy Hump Day!

Stepped out of my house yesterday morning and it was snowing!  I looked up at the sky and laughed!  “Uh-oh, here we go!” I thought.  Fortunately, it didn’t settle!

When I got out of the college at 5.30, there was no snow but it was bitterly cold.  Fortunately, I’m a fat bastard, so I’ve got some padding.  I was actually grateful for all the warm-blooded bodies in my crowded train.  “There’s a passenger incident at Edgware Road, the station is closed, so we won’t be stopping at Edgware Road.”  “Fair enough,” I thought.  The train stopped at Edgware Road but the doors did not open.  “We’re being held in a queue because a passenger has been taken ill at Queens Park.”  “Fair enough,” I thought.  Then, some stupid little girl decided to pull the emergency cord.  You know, one of them cute girls with a pretty face but not many brain cells.  “The driver says he’s not opening the doors,” a helpful passenger said to her.  “But I want to get off!” she complained.  What can you do with these people?  Thus, the train was held even longer, while the driver tried to find where the alarm bells were coming from.   

All I really wanted to do is get home to my warm house, eat hamburger salad and chips, and listen to my current obsession, a song called ‘Immortal’ by a young girl from Cincinnati called Abby Holiday, who sounds a bit like Imogen Heap.  I adore love songs and ‘Immortal’ breaks my heart.  The song opens with the lyrics, “I've got this feeling, You're gonna die early, Without any warning, Oh god can you warn me?”  I appreciate love songs that delve deeper and, ask any loving couple, after a while, you begin to think about death. What if you die first?  Lose your partner and you will feel a delicate and painful blend of loving, losing and longing.  The song continues, “If you're gonna die, you gotta take me too.”  I love listening to this track but it cuts me open.     

Have a wonderful and well-endowed Wednesday.  I love you all.  Yes, a crazy, bald man loves and cares about you.  

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Good morning!  I hope you slept well and feel rested?  Currently sitting in my study, attired only in my blue towelling robe, enjoying my first cuppa of the day.

On Sunday night, I found a brilliant meme and immediately posted it.  It read, “The fact that girls still like guys after all of the oppression proves that sexuality isn’t a choice.”  A lot of straight women probably despair at their predicament.  “I wish I wasn’t straight!  I wish I didn’t find men so irresistible!”  But, despite everything, straight women need love (and obviously deserve love), so they are forced to return to the scene of the crime – the male of the species – and hope he doesn’t break their heart (again!)  “Maybe I’ll find a good one this time?”

So, I’ve had 113 reviews of my novel ‘Whatever Makes Them Dance’.  I’ve got 5000 Facebook friends, which means that just over 2% of my Facebook friends have reviewed it.  Just over 2%.  So, what’s going wrong?  Many people promoting things on Facebook must be asking the same question.  What am I doing wrong?  Is it me?  Is it my product?  Naturally, I don’t just use Facebook as a promotional tool (like some people), but I would like more book reviews.  Have people stopped reading books?  Are people nervous about writing a book review?  Maybe Facebook is the wrong place to promote a book?  These are my problems to solve.   

Had an amazing dream last night.  I was a guest at a very exclusive lunch.  These were finance people.  Not my people.  They were discussing deals and I knew I’d been invited for a reason but I wasn’t sure what.  The first course was some kind of broth but presented in a pretentious way, on a side plate instead of a bowl, so you weren’t really eating a meal, just tasting it.  Eventually, the host turned to me and wanted my opinion on a big deal that was about to go down.  I acted like I knew what I was doing but felt out of my depth.  It’s not a world I know or want to be part of.  And, no, I don’t think I’ve got Imposter Syndrome!  In my world, I know what I’m talking about.

Have a tremendous and tumultuous Tuesday.  I love you all.

[lindsaywesker]

Wendy Carlos pictured with the Moog System 55 a staple in her solo projects and iconic film scores, including for Stanley Kubrick’s ‘A Clockwork Orange’ (1972)

One of electronic music’s most important figures, Wendy Carlos is a true pioneer of the craft with countless influential albums and scores. She provided technical advice and insights to Robert Moog during the development of the Moog Synthesizer, an instrument that would revolutionize the music landscape. ⁠⁠Her album 'Sonic Seasonings’ (1972) is an early example of an ambient record, blending the then-new synth with field recordings to create an entirely new listening experience — years before the term “ambient” was even coined!⁠

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A real honour to be interviewed by living legend @harrismix for his 'Live From London' podcast.

Brand New! On The Streets Now! Want to be a DJ Producer ? Music Industry...